K-Rockathon 'dis-invites' Tebbs Smokeshop as sponsor

Police Raid Tebb's Headshop in SyracusePolice remove boxes of evidence from Tebb's Headshop in Syracuse Wednesday July 25, 2012, part of a statewide effort to target shops suspected of selling illegal synthetic drugs like bath salts.

Organizers of the annual K-Rockathon all-day music fest booted the Tebbs Smokeshop chain as an event sponsor this week after authorities raided several of the stores during an investigation into the sale of the synthetic drug known as bath salts.

The Sunday event’s second stage, which will play host to acts such as Public Enemy and the The Offspring, was to have been called the Tebbs Smokeshop stage.

K-Rockathon also removed Tebbs stores as a ticket outlet for the event.

Ed Levine, owner of Syracuse-based Galaxy Communications, which runs K-Rockathon, said his company severed ties with Tebb’s on Monday, after news broke that its Utica store was raided by police. Tebbs headquarters is in Utica.

"Before that, they had raided other stores, but not Tebbs," Levine said Thursday. "We thought, maybe theyre not doing anything illegal. Once their store in Utica was raided, that changed everything."

Levine said he dis-invited Tebbs from Sunday's event, to be held in the infield of the state fair grandstand.

This would have been Tebbs’ third year as a K-Rockathon sponsor.

A team of Syracuse police, Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies and Drug Enforcement Administration officials on Wednesday raided Tebb’s stores and the 420 Emporium in the Syracuse area. Tebb’s shops in Watertown and Oneida also were targeted, as well as the 420 Emporium in Fulton.

Tebb’s has eight locations in Central New York and three in Maine.

An employee who answered the phone at Tebb’s Utica location said the chain’s owners have no comment for the media.

“We’re not doing that right now because our opinion doesn’t matter,” said the man, who refused to give his name. “Maybe try back in a couple of weeks.”

But he did defend the stores.

“We don’t sell anything illegal,” the employee he said. “How could K-Rock drop us and police harrass us and local news portray us to be so bad when technically we’re not doing anything illegal under state law?”